


please stay

by coffeeren



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, but it's just three, implied pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23156872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeren/pseuds/coffeeren
Summary: Three times Sylvain needs Felix, and one time they need each other.(Or: two boys falling in love over the course of a lifetime).
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 146





	please stay

**Author's Note:**

> i saw this [art](https://twitter.com/djuraaah/status/1238941581526200321) and this whole thing came to me like in a fever dream so here it is

**i.**

Felix finds him in the infirmary—he stomps in with all the force a five-year-old can muster, a scowl on his face so deep that Sylvain supposes it would be scary, if Felix wasn't so cute and a whole head shorter than him.

The nurse shoots him a disapproving look, but Felix ignores him completely and latches himself to Sylvain's bedside like it's where he belongs. "They were making that peach cobbler that you like so much," he mumbles, hand stuck inside his coat. He shoots a look at Sylvain's nurse, probably meant to be defiant. It comes off as just really adorable. The mage sighs exasperatedly, but slips out of the room anyway, ignoring the no food in the infirmary rule for now. Out of sight, out of mind. Sylvain will thank him later.

Satisfied, Felix dumps a chunk of cobbler in Sylvain's lap, wrapped up in a napkin. Sylvain beams at him. "Thanks!"

He struggles to unwrap the cloth with only one hand, but even though the other arm is not exactly broken anymore, it still hurts to move it from the sling. After a while, he gives up and looks helplessly back at Felix.

"You need to be more careful!" Felix takes the opportunity to berate him, pushing his hand out of the way and untying the napkin himself.

Sylvain sticks a piece of cobbler in his mouth, not caring about the inevitable mess on his fingers, and hums. He doesn't tell Felix that he was, in fact, being careful, and that it's not his fault that Miklan had decided to push him off that tree. Felix would probably want to pick a fight with his brother over it, anyway, and that just—no. Felix is small and sweet, and Miklan is strong and mean, and Sylvain doesn't doubt he could actually kill his friend over something like that.

Felix came to check on him when no one else has, and he's worried about Sylvain, and he even brought dessert with him! Just for Sylvain. That's all that matters right now.

The nurse keeps Sylvain there for the rest of the day, much to his dismay. He protests that he feels fine. He even wiggles his newly-healed arm around for good measure, but it's to no avail. Felix scolds him for moving too much, yelling, and, well. Sylvain is in no hurry to risk seeing his brother again, so he promises to be a good boy and rest. Felix doesn't leave the infirmary without him.

**ii.**

" _Sylvain?!_ " a voice squeaks above him. Sylvain squints up and sees Felix's round face peering down at him, eyes so wide they look about to pop off his head. Sylvain hopes fiercely that it doesn't happen. It's disgusting enough down here as it is.

He waves a hello up at Felix. He's done with screaming for today. The whole week, probably.

"What are you _doing_ there?" Felix demands.

"Uh, Miklan—" Sylvain pauses. What is the point, really. His throat hurts when he speaks. He sounds terrible. He feels terrible. He smells like a dead animal, his shoulder hurts from the fall, and he's _hungry_.

"Sylvain! I'm going to call someone!"

Sylvain's head snaps up and he almost throws up again in panic when he sees Felix's form retreating from the well. "No, wait, Felix!" he shouts, ignoring the pain in his vocal chords. "Don't go, please!"

His best friend appears again immediately, expression contorted into something that looks every bit as terrified as Sylvain had been feeling for the last—well, who knows how many hours. With the sun framing him against the well opening, Felix looks like an angel the goddess sent with the express purpose of saving him today, Sylvain thinks, and then laughs at the idea.

"Why are you _laughing_?" Felix shrieks. "What do I do?!"

He's staring intently at Sylvain for instructions. Even in this situation, he turns to Sylvain without question. "There should be a rope," he tells him. He doesn't _exactly_ remember seeing one, what with Miklan dragging him by the hair, but he hopes.

Felix fumbles with something to his right. "Yeah," he shouts back. "Can you climb out?"

 _I doubt it_ , Sylvain thinks. "Yes!" he says.

"Okay! I'm going to throw it to you!" It's the only warning Sylvain gets before the rope comes tumbling down, splashing more of that foul water on his clothes. Ugh. He'll have to throw them out, probably.

"Okay," Sylvain whispers to himself, testing the rope. It's rough. It'll probably burn his hands. He doesn't have much of a choice. He can do this, he _can_.

A full minute into his climb, Sylvain realizes this is much, much more difficult than he thought it would be. He looks up once, because Felix isn't saying anything and by the goddess if he has left Sylvain will be alone _again_ , and the mere thought of that is so terrifying he has difficulty breathing. Felix is still there, though, of course he is, holding the other end of the rope in a death grip and biting his lip so hard it has to hurt.

But he's so _far away_. If the well had looked deep when Sylvain first fell and wasted all his energy screaming for someone to please come help him, it now seems bottomless. This is it. Sylvain will just climb forever and never fully see the light of day again.

He's wrong, obviously. Felix keeps urging him on, and Sylvain thinks that if he stopped talking he would just give up entirely—but Felix doesn't stop, ever, and he has never been this talkative before, but it's nice. His voice brings Sylvain a comfort that he wouldn't know how to explain.

It might as well have been hours since he started, but Sylvain keeps inching his way up, refusing to look up or down because if he sees how much he has left he _will_ cry. Finally, _finally_ , when he gets close enough, Felix leans over the border of the well and claws at Sylvain's wet, dirty clothes, and pulls him up the rest of the way. Sylvain tumbles out, boneless, falls on top of his friend, and immediately bursts into tears.

"Sylvain!" Felix says, with his arms still wrapped around him. He doesn't sound angry that Sylvain probably ruined his clothes too, or that Sylvain is crushing him with his arms, or that he smells like last week's garbage. He just sounds relieved. Sylvain cries harder.

He was so sure he was going to _die_ down there, eight years old and cold and hungry and all alone. Sylvain squeezes his friend tighter, like he's a drowning boy and Felix is the only lifeline keeping him above water. It's not entirely inaccurate.

Felix just stays there and lets him. He doesn't say anything, and at some point Sylvain thinks he starts crying a little too. By the time their tears have become sniffles, the sun is already setting. Miklan never came back to check on him, he realizes. Nor his father. Only Felix. _Always Felix_ , he thinks.

"Let's go home," Sylvain says, wiping his nose on his already soiled sleeve and pulling Felix up with him. The entire way back, Felix refuses to let go of his hand.

**iii.**

Sylvain supposes he should be relieved. In his entire life, Miklan had never brought him anything but pain—it wasn't Miklan's fault that Sylvain had been born with a Crest and he hadn't, sure, but it had never been Sylvain's either. He should be glad, to be rid of someone who had only ever wanted to watch him suffer. But still. _Still_ , it hurts.

He can feel his classmates' eyes on him, when they're walking out of that tower, burning holes in the back of his head and filling them with apprehension and pity. Both things he has no need of. He hopes no one tries to talk to him about it. It's fine. He'll be fine.

Back at the monastery, professor Byleth looks like they want to say something, but Sylvain brushes them off with some less than half-hearted joke he forgets as soon as it's out of his mouth, and they tell him to get some rest and leave him be. He hides in his bedroom for the rest of the evening, and no one comes knocking. That's what he gets, he supposes, for keeping everyone at an arm's length. Good old Sylvain, always goofing off and chasing girls around, he's fine, he didn't even like his brother. He'll be _fine_.

Felix shows up in the morning. "I didn't see you in the dining hall," he says. No greeting, no _I'm sorry_ , just Felix.

"I wasn't hungry," Sylvain says, letting him in, and it's a lie he's not sure why he bothers telling. His last meal was before yesterday's battle, and he might have felt too sick before but there's only so long he can go on an empty stomach. Felix probably knows this.

"Yeah, well," Felix huffs, impatient. Yeah, he definitely knows. "They were serving this, so." He thrusts a folded up napkin in Sylvain's face, and he accepts it gingerly. Felix going out of his way to bring him breakfast in his room makes him feel uncomfortably warm inside, but Sylvain refuses to think about it for longer than a second, lest he realizes something about himself he would rather not know. 

He sets the napkin in his desk and unwraps it. It's—it's peach cobbler. Sylvain is suddenly seven years old and healing from a broken arm in a boring Gautier infirmary, the arm Miklan had broken in a summer long ago when the Fraldarius were visiting, and two stupid, innocent boys with way too much faith in the world had promised to be together until the day they died.

Ah. Sylvain is such a coward.

"You've always been there for me, huh?" he says, still staring at the pastry in his desk. He doesn't particularly expect an answer, but Felix gives him one anyway. Even now, still scarred by the death of a brother he adored so dearly, he's _here_. For Sylvain, who has hated Miklan for as long as he can remember and shares nothing of the pain of losing a loved one that Felix carries in him every day.

"Of course," he says, like there is no other possibility. Maybe there really isn't. Sylvain _looks_ at him. _He is beautiful_ , Sylvain thinks. It's not the first time it's occurred to him, but it's different now. Felix is beautiful, and he's here, and he's always been here, and Sylvain wants, desperately, for him to be here forever.

He, of course, doesn't say any of this. Felix is the first to break eye contact. "Stop staring at me like that," he grumbles. "It's just breakfast." _No, it isn't, and you know it, don't you, Felix?_ , Sylvain thinks. _It is so much more than that_ , he also doesn't say. Coward.

"Stop staring at you like what?" he asks, partly just to be annoying and partly so Felix won't see the emotional turmoil boiling inside him right now.

"Never mind," Felix says. "I just—wanted to check that you were fine."

"I am now," Sylvain says, because it is the truth.

"Well," he says, and is he _blushing_? "Well, that's good. I'll be going, then."

"Okay," Sylvain says, instead of _No, stay_ , or all the countless other things he should be saying right now. "Thank you, Felix."

A nod in his direction is all he gets in answer before Felix is closing the door behind him and leaving. Probably off to the training grounds. There's a finality in the gesture that leaves a bad taste in the back of his mouth, so Sylvain sits down and starts picking at his food to pretend he didn't notice it. He doesn't remember how it had tasted that time when they were kids, but he remembers this warmth in his chest and affection in his heart very well—he wouldn't be able to forget it if he tried.

**i.**

When he watches Rodrigue fall, his first thought is _Felix_. Professor Byleth and Ingrid rush to Dimitri, which, well, maybe that's fair, but _Felix_ is the one who just lost the rest of his family, right before his eyes, for the sake of the very same man Glenn had given his life to save, and it just—it just isn't fair.

Felix vanishes as soon as the battle is over—Sylvain goes looking. If he waits for Felix to ask for anyone's help, he'll die of old age first. It doesn't really offend him, since he has no grounds to stand on in this matter. They're both just too stubborn for their own good, but despite that, they work. It's—probably one of the reasons _why_ they work. Felix understands him, and he understands Felix.

It's why he knows this is not the right moment to leave Felix alone. So he looks, while everyone else is busy with things Sylvain can't really bring himself to care about, at this point. Professor Byleth, always way too worried about every single person under their command to be anywhere near healthy, gives him a knowing but grateful look when they notice his efforts.

It takes him an embarrassing while, to be honest, but he finally finds Felix in the battlements, slumped against the wall with his legs folded under him. He doesn't turn his head or acknowledge Sylvain's presence in any way.

"It is okay," Sylvain starts, slowly and quiet, as if the words themselves could somehow injure Felix even further. "Whatever it is you're feeling right now, Felix, it is okay to feel it."

Silence. Sylvain sits down.

"I hated him," Felix says, so quiet he almost doesn't hear it. "For years, I hated him so much." Sylvain doesn't say that that is okay too, because he already knows this.

Felix turns his head away with a scoff, but fails to hide the tear slipping out the corner of his eye. Sylvain doesn't point it out. Sylvain doesn't say anything. He puts his arm over Felix's shoulder and lets it rest there, where Felix is free to accept the physical comfort or pull away from it. He'll admit it—he didn't expect Felix to actually shuffle closer and lean against Sylvain's side, making himself small in a way Sylvain never thought he would see again. This is—almost like they used to be. Nine years ago, before Duscur, before Glenn, and before they lost Dimitri to whatever ghosts still plague his mind to this day, when Felix still allowed people to see his soft sides, his _best_ sides. Sylvain has missed it. He's missed this Felix.

He must be hurting so much more than he's letting on, to allow himself just this glimpse of vulnerability.

Felix doesn't say anything else for a long while. It's okay. He's never been one for words. That was never a problem, not for them, and Sylvain is here to take care of him however he wants. He's not leaving.

"Sylvain," Felix says after what feels like several hours of silence. "Thank you."

Sylvain loves him. It's ridiculous to finally think these three words in this situation when he's been dutifully avoiding them for years, but it's too late to unthink them. Rodrigue is dead, and it could have been Felix, or Sylvain himself, since he has no shortage of scars from throwing himself in front of blades meant for his friends, and then it would have been _too late_. The very thought makes his stomach churn and his head spin.

An insane idea occurs to Sylvain then. It's nonsensical and stupid, but that's never stopped him before today, and it won't now. For all he knows, they might be dead by sunrise, and he's done turning away from this.

"Can I ask you a weird question?" Sylvain asks.

"Can I stop you?" Felix huffs. For once, there's no bite to it.

"Not really," Sylvain admits, smiling. Might as well get this out of the way before this precious, impossible moment between them ends and they have to go back to their friends and the war and the rest of their lives. "Felix, may I kiss you?"

Felix whips his head so fast his hair slaps Sylvain in the face. He barely notices it. "What kind of question is _that_?" Felix demands, blushing harder than Sylvain has ever seen before.

"That's not an answer," Sylvain points out. He's painfully aware of his reputation and even more so of how much Felix disapproves of it, but now they are older and so much more tired and hurt than they were when they were students, and Sylvain hasn't been this serious in a long, long time.

Felix studies his face in search of something for a moment longer. "Ugh," he says, almost as if he's disgusted, right before fitting his mouth right against Sylvain's.

It takes Sylvain by surprise, it really does, and Sylvain is no stranger to kissing by a long shot, but in this moment, he might as well be. It's nothing more than a chaste press of lips, and yet Sylvain's heart feels like it's going to beat right out of his chest and his hands start shaking when they move to hold Felix's face. It's different and indescribably better than all the people that came before, and if it only hadn't taken Sylvain this _long_ —

This should be happening under other circumstances, Sylvain knows, because Felix is grieving and they're fresh from a gruesome battle, but it doesn't matter. He had never been face to face with the fact that they're in a _war_ and either one of them could lose their very lives any day now. Not like this. To have Felix in his arms while he can feels only right.

"Took you long enough," Felix pulls away from him enough to complain. It's almost funny, how much it echoes Sylvain's own thoughts.

"How long?" Sylvain asks, knowing before he opens his mouth that Felix won't answer. Not yet, anyway.

"Long _enough_."

Sylvain wishes he could say they've got all the time in the world now. That _he_ has the time to stop running away from his own feelings and insecurities and be for Felix the person Felix needs him to be. He doesn't. It wouldn't be fair, to either of them, and it wouldn't be the truth anyway. He can't make such foolish promises.

But they are here now, alive and breathing and still in each other's arms, Sylvain notices, with his own hands framing Felix's stupid beautiful face and Felix's arms firm around his chest, and he will make it count. He kisses Felix again, deeper and longer and probably more in love with each passing second. By the goddess, he will make _this_ count.

**Author's Note:**

> took this stupid boy his whole life to finally accept he's in love with felix can you believe that?  
> thanks for reading this far! if you could let me know what you think i'd appreciate it <3


End file.
